QBGarage.com

How Do I Add a Special Order Item To a Sales Order In POS?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

To add a special order item to a sales order in POS, start with the sales order open.

This article is part of a related series of articles covering adding a new sales order with a special order item, generating a purchase order for that item and emailing it to the vendor, receiving the special order item into inventory, and recording the sale or shipment.

For this example, we’ll open a new sales order by clicking on the Sales Order button in the POS toolbar, followed by the New SO button. The menu selection Point of Sale->New Sales Order also works. Note that the buttons visible on the toolbar are configurable, so you may need to modify your toolbar to see the Receive Items button.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order New Special Order Item

Next, click on the New Special Order Item on the I Want To… menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F9.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order New Special Order Item Information

At a minimum, select a Dept Name and an Item Name on the Item Info tab. Price & Cost fields such as Regular Price and Order Cost can be entered, but they’re not required. Since this is a special order item, we can assume we don’t have the item in stock, so we don’t want to enter any values for Average Unit Cost or On Hand Quantity. These fields will be updated when we ultimately receive the special order item into inventory. Add any required information on the Additional Info and Custom tabs.

Before saving this special order item, keep in mind that the data entered for Order Cost will influence how we process purchase orders for this item in related tasks. POS can automatically generate a purchase order for this item using this cost and email that purchase order to the vendor. However, many retailers opt not to enter an Order Cost at this point. Checking accurate Order Costs may delay completing the customer’s order, and it may be more appropriate to review cost information after hours. If you elect not to enter an Order Cost at this point, it’s important to change any purchase order generated before it’s transmitted to the vendor. For this example, we’ll opt to enter an Order Cost of $0 – something we know is inaccurate. We’ll change it in later steps.

To proceed to add this new special order item to the sales order, click Save and Select.

In our example, we assigned a Regular Price of $100 to this special order item, and our customer is ordering 1 of them. Choose the customer for this sales order in the Customer Info section in the lower left of the POS screen, and click Save & Print or Save Only to save the order.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order New Special Order Item Take Payment

With the sales order saved, POS will display a list view of current sales orders. Since this is a special order item, company policies may require taking a deposit from the customer. Select the sales order from the list and choose Take Deposit/Payment from the I Want To… menu to open the Take Deposit window.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order Take Deposit

In our example, we’ll take a deposit for the full amount of $100.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order Take Deposit 2

Clicking Ok will open the Receipt Payment window. Enter the Amount Tendered for the customer’s payment method, and click Accept Payment to activate the Save and Save & Print Receipt buttons.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Receipt Payment

After recording the deposit, which in this case was payment in full, POS displays the Balance Due for the Sales Order when it’s edited or viewed.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 8 Sales Order Take Deposit 3

We’ve now completed the customer portion of taking a sales order for a special order item, but there are other steps to complete this sale. We need to order the special item from our vendor, receive it into inventory, and finally record the sale to the customer upon delivery.

Some POS users prefer to edit the description of an existing item instead of adding a new special order item as demonstrated in this article. Edits to an item don’t affect the item itself; they’re only reflected on the particular receipt on which they’re entered. The principal advantage of this approach is that it avoids adding new items. Nevertheless, we don’t like this approach. On Hand Quantities and Average Unit Costs stay with the original item itself. Since by definition this is a special item, cost may be different from the existing item, and we may mistakenly think that the order can be filled from stock on hand. If the item is an item with a lot of transaction activity, the details of this special order will quickly disappear. Finally, a headquarters store can convert special order items into regular items if there’s a good business reason to do so. Quickly identifying a special order item that is growing in popularity is much harder if the receipt began as an edited existing item. Given the simplicity of adding special order items to a receipt, we recommend you use the approach outlined here.

(No Ratings Yet)

How Do I Record the Sale of a Special Order Item On a Sales Order In POS?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

To record a sale of a special order item on a sales order in POS, start with the list view of sales orders.

To display the list of open sales orders, click Customer Order List button on the POS Navigator and choose Sales Order List from the menu. You can also access open sales orders by clicking on the Sales Order button on the toolbar. Note that the buttons visible on the toolbar are configurable, so you may need to modify your toolbar to see the Sales Order button.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Make Sale Navigator

From the list view of sales orders, choose Sell Item(s) from the I Want To… menu or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F7.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Sell Item 1

On the Select Items to Sell window, you can record the sale of the entire order by clicking Select All or just a portion of it. Partial shipments are accomplished by entering a Doc.Qty less than the Due quantity for some or all of the items. The order shown below has only 1 line item. Enter either the Doc.Qty for each line or click the Select All button, followed by Continue. For sales orders with many lines where a sale is being recorded for complete delivery of most but not all line items, it’s easier to select all the items first and then change the Doc.Qty only on those lines receiving partial shipments. If shipment quantities aren’t correct on this window, you’ll have an opportunity to change them before completing the sale.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Sell Item Select Item

In the New Sales Receipt window, you can add additional items to this sale, edit or remove the existing items, and record shipping information. On the Shipping window, you can choose from multiple shipping addresses already on file or add a new one. Address changes can optionally update the customer’s information or be used on this order only.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Sell Item Shipping

Once a shipping address is selected, enter the Shipping Details and click Ok.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Sell Item Shipping 2

When we return to the sales receipt, shipping information and the sales receipt total are updated. In this example, we opted not to add shipping charges, because the customer has previously placed a deposit to pay for the sales order in full. The Total reflected on this screen does not reflect the amount unpaid after taking into account deposits, even deposits already applied to this sales order. It’s the total of the sale before deposits are deducted. If we did added additional shipping charges to this receipt, we’ll have an opportunity to collect payment for them as well as apply the customer’s deposit at this point. Click the Take Payment button.

In the Receipt Payment window, the $100 deposit received with the original sales order is shown. That deposit pays for the order in full. If we had caused the sales order to exceed the original deposit by adding additional items, changing order quantities or prices, or adding shipping charges, we could collect and enter payment. If there were no changes to the original sales order and the application of the deposit is correct, click Save or Save & Print Receipt.

QuickBooks POS 8 Sales Order Sell Item Receipt Payment

That completes the process of recording the sale of a special order item in QuickBooks POS.

(+1 rating, 1 votes)

How Do I Export Transactions from QuickBooks?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

QuickBooks supports 2 methods to export transactions:

The Export… button on the Find window
Exporting from a Center, such as the Customer Center

The first method supports exporting a transaction type for more than 1 customer, vendor, or employee. This is appropriate where you need to analyze or exchange a broad but filtered set of data. The second method is designed for exporting transactions for either a single or multiple customers, vendors, or employees. This technique provides the flexibility to produce an export file that would be useful to review one account to address a specific business issue, such as resolving a customer’s payment history, or to export a range of 1 transaction type. Both export methods are based on common elements.

We’ll demonstrate both methods.

Exporting Transaction Data from the Find Window

Using the Find window, transaction data can be exported for more than 1 customer, vendor, or employee. Filters can be applied to reduce the transactions to be exported down to just 1 customer, vendor, or employee. To get started, click the Edit->Find… menu selection.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Export Find Invoice

In this example, we’ll export all customer invoices. From the Transaction Type pull down menu, choose Invoice and then click the Find button. QuickBooks will locate and display the number of matches. For our sample data, there are 114 invoices. This data could be filtered further by choosing a Customer:Job, a Date range, a specific Invoice #, or an Amount. Additional filter options are available on the Advanced tab. Our goal for this export is to export all invoices, so we won’t enter additional filter criteria. To proceed, click the Export… button.

The Export window provides the ability to send the exported data to a comma separated values (.csv) file or an Excel workbook. Exports to Excel are only compatible with Microsoft Excel 2000 or later, and you can choose either a new or existing workbook. For this example, we’ll opt to export the data to a new Excel workbook.

On the Advanced tab, export settings can be customized further. To complete the export, click the Export button.

QuickBooks will automatically launch Microsoft Excel with the exported data loaded. Here’s a screenshot of Excel 2007 with exported transaction data loaded.

Exporting Transaction Data Starting in a Center

Using a Center, such as the Customer Center, you can flexibly export transactions for either a single customer, vendor, or employee or a filtered list of all transactions relevant to that Center. In this example, we’ll demonstrate exporting data for 1 customer, a common task to review a customer’s purchase history, as well as transactions for a range of customers.

To start, open the Customer Center and choose the customer whose data will be exported. In our example, we’ll choose “Abercrombie, Kristy” (an example only from the sample data) from the customer list displayed on the left.

QuickBoks Premier 2009 Customer Center Export 1

With a customer selected, click the Excel button in the toolbar, followed by the Export Transactions… menu entry in the menu that appears below. This will export the transactions displayed for this individual customer. These transactions can be filtered by changing the values in the pull down menus above the transaction list. Export to Excel will proceed as described above, with the ability to export the transactions to either a new or existing workbook. Note that this method doesn’t offer an ability to export to a .csv file. That’s not an important consideration here, since a .csv file would only be useful in exporting a large number of transactions.

To export transaction data for more than 1 customer from the Customer Center, click the Transactions tab. A list of the available transaction types is shown on the left, with all of the transactions that meet the filter conditions on the right. Change the filter conditions as needed. In our example, with no additional filters, this transaction export will mirror the results we exported using the Find window. To proceed, click the Export… button on the toolbar.

QuickBoks Premier 2009 Customer Center Export 2

Transaction export will proceed as described in our discussion using the Find window. In other words, you’ll be able to export to either a .csv file or an Excel file.

(-1 rating, 1 votes)

What’s the Best Way To Track Affiliate Sales in POS?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

Sales by affiliates are an increasingly common phenomenon, especially in online sales. Typically, these sales need to be tracked much like sales by a commissioned salesperson, both to monitor the commission to be paid to the affiliate and to track the effectiveness of that marketing channel.

We recommend using 1 of 2 methods to track affiliate sales in POS:

Define the affiliate as an employee
Enter a Promo Code for the affiliate on receipts and sales orders

Our recommended approach is to define the affiliate as an employee and enter that employee code in the Associate field on each receipt and sales order. This is analogous to recording a sales rep on a transaction. Although POS doesn’t use the Sales Rep from QuickBooks financial, software, using an employee code in this fashion serves a similar purpose.

Both of these approaches allow you to track affiliate sales by using the built-in reporting features of POS.

Method 1 – Define the Affiliate as an Employee

To track affiliate sales by defining the affiliate as an employee, keep in mind that employee data is not shared between QuickBooks financial software and POS. Also, an employee (or Associate on the New Sales Receipt window) is not the same as a Cashier. To define a new employee, click Employees->Employee List, followed by the New Employee button. Enter an employee for each affiliate whose sales you want to track.

One important consideration in using an employee code to track affiliate sales is to accurately record the Commission %. If a single affiliate gets a different Commission % for different sales, you’ll need to enter multiple employee codes for that affiliate. When you record receipts or sales orders, you’ll need to enter only those items on that receipt or order that receive that commission rate, since you can only enter one employee code (or Associate) on a receipt or sales order. Moreover, the Commission % only applies to receipts and sales orders recorded after the Commission % is recorded. If you record a Commission % of 0.00 (which is the default), POS won’t calculate any commissions on receipts or sales orders until you change it, and then it will only apply to new transactions, not those already entered. If there’s a change in the commission for your affiliate, it’s important to update the affiliate’s employee record immediately on the effective date of the change, before new transactions are entered so that your commission reports are accurate.

The commissions that POS calculates aren’t shared with QuickBooks financial software, so you’ll have to use POS reports as an aid to record commission expense in QuickBooks financial software on your own.

QuickBooks Point of Sale Employees New 2

During transaction entry, enter the employee code for the affiliate responsible for this transaction in the Associate field. Because the employee code is selected from a pre-defined pull-down menu, there’s less chance for data entry error. However, POS can’t require entry of an employee in the Associate field, so there’s some risk that all affiliate sales data won’t be captured.

QuickBooks Point of Sale Make Sale Employee

There are a variety of built-in reports showing sales by employee found on the Reports->Employees menu, and these readily lend themselves to reporting on affiliate sales. In addition to reports, POS offers a basic pie chart showing the sales contribution of employees.

QuickBooks Point of Sale Employee Sales Report

Method 2 – Enter a Promo Code for the Affiliate on Receipts and Sales Orders

To track affiliate sales by entering a Promo Code on each receipt and sales order, just enter the code for each affiliate in the Promo Code box.

QuickBooks Point of Sale Make Sale Promo Code

Optionally, to insure affiliate sales data are properly captured, consider requiring a Promo Code on receipts and sales orders by checking the Sales preference Require a Promotional Code on receipts and customer orders on the Edit->Preferences->Company menu.

QuickBooks POS 8 Company Preferences Promo Code

Using a Promo Code can be an effective way to capture and report on affiliate sales because of the availability of an off-the-shelf report on sales by Promo Code. To generate the report, click on the Reports->Sales->General Sales – Promo Code Summary menu.

QuickBooks POS 8 Reports Menu Promo Code Summary

Here’s that report:

QuickBooks POS 8 Promo Code Summary Report

The drawbacks to using a Promo Code to track affiliate sales are twofold. First, Promo Codes are not defined and selected from a list, so extra care needs to be taken to consistently use the same code and avoid data entry errors. Secondly, if a Promo Code isn’t required, there’s a chance it will be omitted from a receipt or sales order inadvertently. On the other hand, if a Promo Code is required and affiliate sales aren’t a large portion of transactions, there’s an extra step in transaction entry that otherwise wouldn’t be required on the majority of transactions.

We recommend defining each affiliate as an employee to capture affiliate sales. It’s more reliable, and there are better reporting tools. However, for firms that don’t want to include affiliates on employee lists, using a Promo Code is a workable alternative.

(No Ratings Yet)

Does QuickBooks Have Limits On the Number of List Items and Transactions That Can Be Entered?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

Yes. There are 2 kinds of limits: physical and practical. Let’s consider each in turn.

QuickBooks faces these physical limits:

2 billion transactions
10,000 accounts in the GL chart of accounts
14,500 names (customers, vendors, employees, and other names – combined)
14,500 items (which include inventory items)
10,000 classes
100 price levels

The above list highlights the most important physical limits of QuickBooks; it’s not an all-inclusive list. The physical limits of Enterprise Solutions are considerably higher. For details on all of the physical limits of both QuickBooks and Enterprise Solutions, consult this Intuit knowledge base article.

To find out how your own company file stands relative to these limits, press F2 from within QuickBooks to display the Product Information window. On the right side, you’ll see the List Information. In this example, the company file has 134 (out of 10,000) GL accounts, 217 (out of 14,500) total names, and 106 (out of 14,500) Items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Product Information List Information

There are important practical considerations as well. According to Intuit, QuickBooks is designed for small businesses with fewer than 20 employees and $2 million in annual revenue. However, those are general guidelines. Bigger firms reliably use QuickBooks. What impacts whether you should use QuickBooks or its more powerful relative, Enterprise Solutions, is the size of your data file today and how that data is expected to grow over the time period for which you want to keep all transaction data in 1 file.

Intuit suggests estimating 2 Kb per transaction and projecting the size of your data file over several years. Keep in mind that a sale paid for with 1 check results in 3 transactions (invoice, payment, and deposit), and each AP transaction results in at least 2 (vendor bill and payment). This estimate does not include the data that list elements themselves (e. g., customers, vendors, or items) will add to overall file size.

In our experience, the performance of QuickBooks can degrade if overall company file size exceeds 100 Mb. Intuit suggests a practical limit of growth of 15 Mb per year (or about 7500 transactions).

As a company grows, QuickBooks includes a utility to remove fully paid and reconciled transactions in a process referred to as “cleaning up.” This process reduces the size of the QuickBooks company file. That’s why it’s important to consider the time period you’ll keep old transaction data in your company file. If you’ll clean up your company file every 18-24 months, the number of transactions you can store without hitting the practical limitations of QuickBooks will be considerably greater.

Some longtime QuickBooks users engage in a process of making a backup copy of a company file and then cleaning it up with a cutoff date. The backup copy preserves history transactions for those rare instances where they may be useful, but the company file for everyday use has been cleaned up and no longer includes stale, fully paid transactions. That results in improved performance.

The guidelines on practical limits we’ve discussed here aren’t unbreakable rules, and the limits are influenced by factors we didn’t mention, most notably the hardware performance of the computer on which you run QuickBooks.

(-1 rating, 1 votes)

Accounting

Developer

Intuit